It’s a feeling, I’m sure is shared by anyone who’s not self-employed, that desire to be your own boss and not have to answer to anyone. At the end of the day, we all want to be treated with respect and rightly so. I hate it every time someone in a position of authority treats others like trash, so to speak. Personally, it’s not so much our boss that I have a problem with but rather a guy who is not even on the Managerial team and yet we somehow have to answer to him. No one knows how he assumed a supervisory role but when he talks, even our boss listens. Most troubling about this man is that he’s so condescending. He will talk to you like you’re his child or maid and I find that so annoying, especially because most of the time, he doesn’t have better ideas. I think he just enjoys putting others down. I particularly don’t like the way he just orders you to do this or that. Like the time he dumped a pile of paperwork on my desk and told me he wanted a proposal about a project I knew nothing about by the end of that day. Before I could even ask how, when and why me, he had stormed off. He hadn’t said hi or even cared to ask whether I was busy, which I was. I thought about heading to his office and telling him to ask someone else because I had work to do but decided to send an email instead because I didn’t want to get into a heated row, which I knew would ensure because I have all this pent-up anger against him, especially after I heard how mean he has been to some other co-workers. His reply, unsurprisingly was, “Well, if you don’t do it, I will tell the boss you refused to do it...” At that point, I decided to be the bigger person. Not because I’m scared to death of losing my job but because I realised that this guy has control issues and people like him always name-drop or use veiled threats to get you to do something because deep down, they’re insecure and unsure of their own authority. No self-respecting person will find it necessary to bark orders and hit desks when addressing colleagues who know what they’re doing most of the time. I got around to doing the report, not in the time he had demanded I do it but the next day and I was waiting for him to make noise about that. He didn’t, although he said something about a couple of things I had left out. I asked him what exactly those were and he said he would message me later. I’m pretty sure he hadn’t even read the file. I’m still waiting for suggestions on his part but I know he doesn’t have any. See how I have this guy figured out? My only hope is that the boss also realises and soon, that this loudmouth is all talk and no substance.
